Im currently modeling in houdini, and I was wondering how to snap a group of verticies along the grid so you will able to align them.

Back in Maya all I needed to do was grab the verticies hold down X and pull one of the axis handles, which resulted all verticies aligning along the corresponding axis.

In Houdini I kind of found a workflow, make an edit node and put the scale on 0 and then move the verticies, but im still not able to snap my handle to something else for aligning purposes..

Another question is changing my pivot, I found out you can right click on your axis handle and say snap to geometry, it also tells you which shortcut its suppose to be but unfortunatley the shortcut does not seem to work.. anyone else have the same problem?

Robert Magee

10 October 2011, 07:44 PM

The technique you mention with Maya where you point snap but keep all the points along one axis is not available in Houdini. A technique you can use in Houdini is to select the points, press tab > point which adds a point sop with those points. Under Position, RMB-click on the axis you want to flatten and choose Delete channels - this means that you aren't passing the values on but replacing with a new value (which will be 0 by default). You can then set the value to whatever you want to line up the points.

For the pivot, you can use the insert key at the object level. I don't have one on my keyboard so I couldn't test it. If you are at the geometry level then you can RMB and turn off Attach to Geometry to movie the selection pivot then when you have placed it (point snapping works with this) then you turn on Attach to Geometry to go back editing.

johnnycore

10 October 2011, 12:10 PM

Thanks, the insert button seem to work for me!

About the point sop trick when deleting channels, it kind of does what I want but not exactly.
When I delete my channel it also sets the translation to the world 0, I want it to maintain its translation but let the points have the same translation instead.

When I make a translate sop, I just scale it to 0 in the corresponding axis.

And by the way this was not exactly what I mean with axis handle snapping, its really hard to explain.. but I got enough info to work around this situation alot faster right now.. :)

Thanks

Robert Magee

10 October 2011, 06:30 PM

I do actually know what you mean by axis handle snapping - I worked at Alias when we put it into Maya. It was a power animator feature that was very useful. It isn't in Houdini :-( I use the point sop method - it sets the value to 0 but you can move that to anywhere you want. If you have rotation at the object level it will not quite act as you would expect.

SwannCG

10 October 2011, 12:02 AM

Thanks, the insert button seem to work for me!

About the point sop trick when deleting channels, it kind of does what I want but not exactly.
When I delete my channel it also sets the translation to the world 0, I want it to maintain its translation but let the points have the same translation instead.

When I make a translate sop, I just scale it to 0 in the corresponding axis.

And by the way this was not exactly what I mean with axis handle snapping, its really hard to explain.. but I got enough info to work around this situation alot faster right now.. :)

Thanks

maybe this will help http://vimeo.com/23794152

thekenny

10 October 2011, 03:33 PM

I watched swan's vimeo....

i believe you would have to do a bit of construction plane modeling to do this sort of thing.

First you would have to turn on the construction plane, enter its mode in SOPviewer and then to alignment of the plane... best best is to get your orientation right from the current view.. then you can use the ALTand CTRLhotkeys to move the plane perpendicular and parallel to the viewing angle.

Then go to the editSOP and select your points. move your cursor away from the geometry and the handle (jack) and RMB click. use the option for "flatten current selection to c-plane"

that should get you want you want... kinda

it is a bit of a workflow oddity for me personally to have to enter to construction mode and leave the EditSOP flow. perhaps it will get better over time.

there was one thing long ago i miss and it was memory buttons to store the position of a jack (handle) regardless of your current selection you could detach, go to the stored position, and return. made things easy when you had to "hit" a certain position from a modeling point of view.

good luck
-k

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